Rabbi Michoel and Sarah Katsenelenbogen with their children. Young Moshe is seated between his parents.

Remembering Reb Moshe Katsenelenbogen, 83, OBM

Moshe Katsenelenbogen, or Reb Maishke, as he was later known, was born on the 11th of Nissan in 1931 in Gzhatsk, in the former Soviet Union, to Rabbi Michoel and Sarah Katsenelenbogen, the youngest of five children.

His father was among the first and most prominent students of Yeshivat Tomchei Temimim, the Chabad yeshivah in the Belorussian city of Lubavitch. His mother served as the cook in the yeshivah and was active in the community, arranging underground Torah schools for young children and saving Jewish children from government orphanages.

Despite the danger, the Katsenelenbogen family retained an open home, inviting in many Chassidim fleeing from the Soviet secret police. They also refused to bow to the authorities’ demands to stop encouraging Jewish education. In fact, they even held a small yeshivah in their home in Stari-Russia so that their children would grow up in an atmosphere steeped in Torah study and Jewish observance.

In the fall of 1937, when Moshe was 6, his father was taken away by the secret police and never seen again. They later discovered that he was shot on Nov. 19, about six weeks after his arrest.

Moshe was educated in the underground Chabad network of Torah schools for which his father had given his life. He studied with great zeal, and soon mastered large tracts of Mishnah, Talmud, Jewish law and Chassidic teachings by heart—something that would stand to good use in the years ahead.

Undaunted by the clear and present danger, the young man devoted his own life to spreading Jewish pride from behind the Iron Curtain, helping the Chabad-Lubavitch network of underground synagogues and schools.

Following World War II and taking advantage of a brief parting of the Iron Curtain, Sarah, known by all as “Mumme (Auntie) Sarah,” was at the forefront of the underground movement to spirit Jewish families out of Russia using Polish documents that were often forged or taken from people no longer alive. With her legendary ingenuity and nerves of steel, her primary responsibility was to obtain the voluminous documents needed for each individual escapee.

After sending hundreds of people to safety, she managed to save one passport for herself. However, when she learned that Rebbetzin Chana, wife of Rabbi Levi Yitzchak Schneerson and mother of the future Rebbe—Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory—had no passport with which to flee, she gladly gave it up, and the Rebbetzin made her way safely to the shores of the United States a short while later.

Back in Russia, the authorities had gotten wind of Mumme Sarah’s activities, and she and her son Moshe were forced to flee to Kutaisi, Georgia.

Mother and Son Jailed Together

In the spring of 1950, Mumme Sarah traveled to Moscow. On Lag BaOmer night, Moshe attended a Chassidic gathering honor of the holiday. When he left, he was arrested by the NKVD (the precursor to the KGB) for his alleged “crimes.” Among the charges levied against him were failure to report his mother’s activities and his refusal to attend Soviet schools.

Meanwhile, his mother unwittingly sent him a telegram informing him of her return. The NKVD intercepted the message, and when she arrived at the train station, she, too, was arrested.

Incarcerated in the same prison, the mother and teenage son were periodically allowed to see each other. Hoping to extract a confession from Mumme Sarah, they would whip Moshe within earshot of her cell. But she stood firm and never revealed information about her comrades. However, the sight of her young son—shriveled and blackened by starvation and torture—was too much for the grieving mother to bear; in the spring of 1952, she died in jail of a heart attack at age 61.

Moshe was jailed for seven-and-a-half years—90 months, to be exact—serving many of them in Siberian labor camps. With great self-sacrifice, he maintained Jewish practice to the best of his ability. In fact, he was once caught putting on tefillin under his blanket in bed. Suspecting that he was transmitting sensitive information via radio, officials confiscated the tefillin, and Moshe was taken to task for espionage. He put them on, and in just 30 seconds said the Shema prayer and removed them, demonstrating that they were a harmless religious item.

After being set free, he applied repeatedly for a visa to leave Russia but was refused.

While living in Moscow, he continued to spread Jewish awareness and observance. Among his students was the young Dr. David Kazhdan, who went on to become a mathematician and professor at Harvard University and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and recently earned the Israel Prize—the country’s highest academic honor—for mathematics and computer science.

When Moshe was finally granted a visa in 1971, his one request was to take with him three Torah scrolls that he had personally carried out of a synagogue before their destruction at the hands of Soviet authorities.

It is said that when he first entered the Rebbe’s office for the first time, the Rebbe stood up in his honor, explaining that one must stand for someone who had mastered Jewish law as he had. When Moshe tried to minimize his accomplishments, the Rebbe replied: “By this desk, no untruths are told.”

The Rebbe also sent him to address the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada. In attendance was Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, perhaps the greatest contemporary authority on Jewish law, who himself had fled the former Soviet Union in 1935. Impressed by the young man’s great knowledge and depth, he invited Moshe to his house. He was greatly moved, even brought to tears, by the Torah greatness attained by a fatherless boy in the heart of Stalin’s Russia. The older rabbi gifted his guest a set of his magnum opus, Igrot Moshe, as a token of his admiration.

A New Life in Freedom

Reb Maishke—as he had become known—settled in London, England. After his marriage to Zelda Pinsky in 1973, who also came from a family that had also suffered tremendously at the hands of the Soviets, they started a family. He served as a teacher at the local Chabad high school, where he taught by example as much as he did through texts. In time, he made a living in the financial sector and took pleasure in raising his children in newfound freedom.

The Katsenelenbogens had an open home where travelers and locals knew they were always welcome for a meal and a kind word.

Through his business, Reb Maishke came into contact with many people and would characteristically steer the conversation toward matters of Torah or Jewish inspiration. While running bills through an automatic money counter, he was known to comment: “Jewish law describes how to enunciate the words of prayer with the same care as one who counts coins. It seems that today the reason people pray so quickly is because they count the money with machines.”

A young man taking advantage of the Katsenelenbogen hospitality once asked Reb Maishke which way was east, since Jews pray towards Jerusalem. Reb Maishke did not know, simply excusing himself by saying that in the 40 years he had lived in that home, he never failed to pray at the synagogue.

A loving family man, Reb Maishke doted on his wife, five children and grandchildren. His great-nephew, Rabbi Elchanan Kazen, recalls seeing how he prepared tea for his wife, a daily ritual that they both enjoyed.

Continuing his parents’ tradition, Reb Maishke distributed large amounts of charity in secrecy. For example, Kazen recalls how he once had his son deposit an unmarked envelope stuffed with money into the mailbox of a family in need, who lived in a different country. And he did so in the dead of the night to avoid embarrassing the family.

A long time resident of Stamford Hill in London, Reb Maishke was recognized in his neighborhood as a humble Torah scholar, a happy person and a living example of Chassidic devotion.

After a brief illness, he passed away in his sleep on Sept. 3, 2014, at the age of 83.

In addition to his wife, he is survived by his children: Chani LandaRochel Zajac, Nechama Dina Heller (all of London); Rabbi Nochum Katsenelenbogen (Chabad-Lubavitch emissary to Owings Mills, Md.); Rabbi Michoel Katsenelenbogen (London); and many grandchildren.

He is also survived by his elder brother, Reb Yehoshua Raskin of London.

5 Comments

  • well

    Rav Moshe ‘perhaps the greatest etc’ are you kidding ? the greatest Gadol of last two generations and the nasi w/o question

  • question

    He is also survived by his elder brother, Reb Yehoshua Raskin of London.

    How does his brother have a different last name to him?

    • Different last name

      When crossing over from Russia sometimes they has to change to their last names in order to safely cross over the border. Just look at Raskin from the fish shop when he has brothers with the last name Laine/

  • A true Chossid

    Rabbi Katsenelenbogen,what ever he did was L’Shem Shomayim and a true Chossid. We can all learn from him.